There has been a fair bit of talk recently about Tyler Bozak and what the Leafs should do with him as he is clearly not suited for his #1C role but is set to be a UFA this summer and if the Leafs intend to keep him he’ll need a new contract. To get an idea of his worth, I decided to see if I could identify a few comparable players.

Let’s start off offensively. The first thing I looked at was primary points per 60 minutes of 5v5 ice time (primary points = goals + first assists). From last year through this past weekend’s games Bozak had a PrPts/60of 1.085 so as an initial cut off I pared down the list of comparable players to forwards a PrPts/60 of between 1.00 and 1.20 and who have had at least 1000 minutes of ice time. There are some pretty good players in this list such as Ryan Getzlaf, Stephen Weiss, Tomas Plekanec and Daniel Breiere but there are some less talented players like Eric Nystrom and Marcel Goc.

The next thing I considered is Primary Points Percentage (PrPts%), or the percentage of goals scored while the player was on the ice. Tyler Bozak’s PrPts% is a relatively weak 41.24% (Getzlaf, for example, is 52.38% and Plekanec’s is 56.22%). I then pared down the list to just include centers and this is what I came up with as comparable offensive centers, sorted by PrPts%.

Player

Team

PPts/60

PrPts%

NIELSEN, FRANS

NY Islanders

1.091

47.98%

SMITH, ZACK

Ottawa

1.008

46.67%

VERMETTE, ANTOINE

Phoenix

1.173

46.55%

LETESTU, MARK

Columbus

1.138

46.32%

NUGENT-HOPKINS, RYAN

Edmonton

1.182

46.14%

ZUBRUS, DAINIUS

New Jersey

1.12

45.31%

KRUGER, MARCUS

Chicago

1.115

43.78%

HANZAL, MARTIN

Phoenix

1.078

42.27%

STAJAN, MATT

Calgary

1.064

41.87%

BOZAK, TYLER

Toronto

1.085

41.24%

KOIVU, SAKU

Anaheim

1.15

38.49%

That is a list of mostly 2nd and 3rd line centers along with not yet fully developed Nugent-Hopkins. So, what about Bozak defensively? To evaluate defensive play I looked at the players 5v5 corsi events against per 20 minutes (CA20) and the ratio of the players CA20 vs his team mates CA20 when they are not playing with him (TMCA20). This gives us an indication of whether their team mates are improving their defensive stats while on the the ice with the player.

Player Name

Team

CA20

CA20/TMCA20

ZUBRUS, DAINIUS

New Jersey

14.309

0.77

LETESTU, MARK

Columbus

17.034

0.90

STAJAN, MATT

Calgary

17.312

0.91

HANZAL, MARTIN

Phoenix

18.122

0.93

VERMETTE, ANTOINE

Phoenix

17.762

0.97

NIELSEN, FRANS

NY Islanders

18.307

1.01

KOIVU, SAKU

Anaheim

17.114

1.02

SMITH, ZACK

Ottawa

18.771

1.04

KRUGER, MARCUS

Chicago

15.940

1.05

BOZAK, TYLER

Toronto

21.155

1.08

For CA20/TMCA20, the lower the number the better as this indicates their line mates CA20 is better with the player than not with the player. Bozak ranks dead last in this category and also ranks dead last (by a significant margin) in CA20.

So, what does this tell us about Tyler Bozak? Well, it probably means he has 3rd line offensive ability but it is very questionable whether he is good enough defensively be a useful 3rd liner. As for the best comparable to Tyler Bozak, I’d have to say either Marcus Kruger or Matt Stajan or maybe Frans Nielsen but Bozak is probably somewhat below all of them in terms of value due to his poor defensive play.

Search

Welcome

Welcome to HockeyAnalysis.com, where I strive to get a better understanding of the game of hockey through the use of statistical analysis. I hope you enjoy whatever time you spend here and maybe even learn a little. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to drop me an e-mail at david (at) hockeyanalysis.com.